The dinner was informal. Lindsay and Fernando Anderson, the flamboyant junior senator from New Mexico, were the only guests. They were four at the charming ante bellum mahogany table of the Secretary General's Natchez mansion. Carlo Bergozza, the Secretary General himself—courteous, with natural as well as harness-stooped shoulders, a trifle vague—and his daughter and official hostess, Maria—vividly brunette and dynamic despite the twist given her body by her harness and the mask of huge triangular spectacles—made up the rest of the party.
The meal was simple, automatically served, well prepared. It consisted of plankton soup with chives in chilled bowls, noisettes of lamb with yeast-truffles and bamboo-grass and, in deference to Lindsay, a dessert of Martian lichenberries. Conversation consisted of routine gambits and responses until the dessert.
Then Senator Anderson removed his diamond-shaped raspberry glasses and said, "You'll pardon me, but I want to see what our distinguished visitor really looks like. After all, he can see us as we are."
Secretary General Bergozza looked briefly shocked. Then his overpowering courtesy came to his rescue and he laid aside his own dark green spectacles. He said, "You know, Lindsay, you remind me a little of an American ambassador to the Court of Saint James a hundred and fifty years ago—I believe his name was Harvey. He refused to wear knee-britches to his own reception. Other times, other customs."
"I'm sorry if my appearance is bothering people," said Lindsay, noting that Maria, without her glasses, came close to being a truly pretty young woman. "I'm not trying to disturb them—I merely want them to see me as a true representative of my own world."
Maria said impulsively, "It isn't that you bother us—not really. It's just that you're a little too good looking. Almost like a gladiator. People aren't used to it in a statesman."
"Too good looking—with this busted beak of mine?" Lindsay pressed a finger against his nose, which had been broken in youth by a wild pitch.
Senator Anderson said, "The slight irregularity of your nose is just enough to keep you from being too pretty, Lindsay." He smiled and added, "You certainly stirred up a cyclotron with your speech this afternoon. The British are planning a white paper."
"I merely stated facts as I know them," said Lindsay.
"They aren't used to facts—not unless they have been computer-processed," said the senator. He seemed pleased for some reason, added, "You may have broken some real ice, Lindsay. I've been trying for years to work out a way to tell people computers are robbing them of all powers of decision."